27. A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel, 2nd Edition by Steven Weisenburger published: originally 1988, 2nd edition is from 2006format: 400 page paperbackacquired: March 20 to help with GRread: Apr 1 - May 22rating: **** stars

There are other sources for help with GR, but I liked this one because it was crazy detailed, translated almost every foreign language bit and tried to decipher the meaning under every name and it just made me feel more comfortable. It also has little mini-summaries of each episode. I would read these before reading the episode (!)—even as I know they didn't really always capture what really happens in those episodes. This just helped reduce my stress of trying to figure out what was going on as I read.

The book suffers a bit on the big picture. I had to go to wikipedia to understand some critical plot elements. GR is abstruse, but Weisenburger doesn't capture everything and occasionally doesn't make any comment on major things. But, still, this is an impressive compilation. I was very happy to have it. ( )

Weisenburger provides an analysis, virtually line-by-line, of the dense collection of references and allusions crammed into Gravity’s Rainbow. If you’re more patient than I, you could save the book for a second reading but I get frustrated when a book is confusing me and Weisenburger frequently came to the rescue. If you are going to use the guide, and I would recommend it, be sure not to read about a section until you have finished it because there are plenty of spoilers. Read the introduction last of all.Full review: http://www.26books.com/?p=549

A page-by-age exegeis of Pynchon's classic novel. Great for historical and scientific details you missed. Recommended only for fans who get a kick out of rereading Gravity's Rainbow one paragraph at a time, but you know who you are. ( )

Wikipedia in English

Adding some 20 percent to the original content, this is a completely updated edition of Steven Weisenburger's indispensable guide to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Weisenburger takes the reader page by page, often line by line, through the welter of historical references, scientific data, cultural fragments, anthropological research, jokes, and puns around which Pynchon wove his story. Weisenburger fully annotates Pynchon's use of languages ranging from Russian and Hebrew to such subdialects of English as 1940s street talk, drug lingo, and military slang as well as the more obscure terminology of black magic, Rosicrucianism, and Pavlovian psychology. The Companion also reveals the underlying organization of Gravity's Rainbow--how the book's myriad references form patterns of meaning and structure that have eluded both admirers and critics of the novel.

The Companion is keyed to the pages of the principal American editions of Gravity's Rainbow: Viking/Penguin (1973), Bantam (1974), and the special, repaginated Penguin paperback (2000) honoring the novel as one of twenty "Great Books of the Twentieth Century."